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Humongous Entertainment
Humongous Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Bothell, Washington. Founded in March 1992, the company is best known for developing multiple edutainment franchises, of which most prominently, Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam and Spy Fox, which, combined, sold over 15 million copies and earned more than 400 awards of excellence. Humongous Entertainment was acquired by GT Interactive (later renamed Infogrames, Inc., then Atari, Inc.) in July 1996. By October 2000, sales of Humongous games had surpassed 16 million copies. History Formation (1992-1996) Humongous Entertainment was formed on March 2, 1992, by Shelley Day and Ron Gilbert. The name Humongous Entertainment was suggested by Gilbert's ex-LucasArts colleague, Tim Schafer. It became known for creating four point-and-click adventure game series intended for young children, branded collectively as "Junior Adventures", with the four series being the Putt-Putt series, the Freddi Fish series, the Pajama Sam series and the Spy Fox series. Despite all four series being developed and released in parallel, characters from one series do not formally crossover with ones in another and instead appear as cameos or Easter eggs in any of the three other series until 2017. The company got the reputation as the "third largest children's educational-software company". In 1995, Gilbert and Day established a company division, Cavedog Entertainment, in Seattle, set to develop games of alternative genres, and released Total Annihilation, a real-time strategy (RTS) game, in 1997. This was followed by two expansion packs in 1998, as well as variation called Total Annihilation: Kingdoms plus expansion pack in 1999. Acquisitions, decline, dissolution (1996-2006) On July 11, 1996, Humongous Entertainment was purchased by GT Interactive for US$76 million. In November 1999, GT Interactive was acquired by Infogrames and renamed Infogrames, Inc. In 2000, Humongous Entertainment released a One-Stop Fun Shop activity center game for each Junior Adventure series, with the exception of Spy Fox. In 2000, the co-founders tried to buy Humongous Entertainment back from Infogrames, Inc., using external funding, but the day of the planned purchase was the day of the dot-com collapse, wherefore the funding was pulled. The founders soon left Humongous, alongside many other key employees, and formed a new studio, Hulabee Entertainment, in 2001. In June 2001, Infogrames, Inc. laid off 82 personnel, over 40% of staff from Humongous Entertainment. In May 2003, after Infogrames, Inc. purchased Hasbro Interactive—which owned the rights to the Atari brand—the company was renamed Atari, Inc. In August 2005, facing financial struggles, Atari, Inc. sold Humongous Entertainment to majority stock holder Infogrames for US$10.3 million, under the condition that all titles developed by Humongous Entertainment through March 31, 2006. Asset sale, brand revival (2013-2015) Finding itself in a difficult financial situation, Infogrames (then renamed Atari, SA), filed bankruptcy for three of its American subsidiaries, Atari, Inc., Atari Interactive and Humongous, Inc. in 2009. As part of the resolution proceedings, the Humongous brand and most game assets were transferred to Tommo on July 19, 2013. Furthermore, the Backyard Sports series was acquired by The Evergreen Group, and MoonBase Commander, Crashhopper Early Learning Activity Center and Crashhopper's Math: Alien Game Galaxy by Rebellion Developments. Filmography * Crashhopper: The Powerful Sports (December 15, 2017) (with 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. Pictures, Original Film, Overbrook Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, Man of Action Entertainment, Mirage Studios, Dong Woo Animation, Santo Domingo Animation, Ithrax Producciones, DC Comics, Ricky and Morty LLC., The Curiosity Company, Sunwoo Entertainment and ESPN Films)